local_library A Time for Dying, A Time for Living

by Connie Woodring

Published in Issue No. 291 ~ August, 2021

When my mother died, nothing happened.

I thought that to honor her death, the earth should stop for a second or two.

Everything continued as if nothing as monumental as death occurred.

Perhaps that is why we have funerals,

but even there everyone cries, snickers, yawns, feigns grief, fantasizes about inheritances.

 

I realized as she was lowered into the ground, that if every death was accompanied by a second

of catatonia, there would be no time for living.

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I am a 75-year-old retired therapist and social activist who is getting back to my true love of writing after 45 years in my real job.I have had 28 poems published in various presses, including one nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize.